Posts Tagged ‘ford bronco’

Prior to joining Ford, Jim Hackett was Steelcase CEO and served as Interim U-Michigan Athletic Director.

While Ford has won praise for its push into autonomous vehicles, car-sharing and other futuristic mobility programs, it has also been criticized for a lack of new products today, something CEO Jim Hackett said the Detroit carmaker is addressing.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the former Steelcase chief executive – who took over at Ford following a management shake-up in May – say there is plenty “in the hopper,” though he declined to offer details on what new products are coming. Ford has revealed plans to revive its Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup nameplates, but critics say the carmaker also needs to revitalize its mainstream passenger car and luxury line-ups.

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Separately, Ford confirmed Thursday that it will pay up to $10.1 million to settle sexual and racial harassment allegations linked to its two Chicago-area factories. It also will add new training programs for workers at those plants.

Toyota drops a hint of what it has coming at next month's New York International Auto Show.

Rumors have been buzzing since last autumn, when Toyota registered the new trademark, FT-4X. What might that be used for? The initial inklings suggested it would likely show up on a light truck, perhaps the replacement for the old FJ Cruiser, dropped after the 2014 model-year.

The Japanese maker is now confirming a concept using that badge will make its debut at the New York International Auto Show next month, and from the teaser image accompanying that terse announcement, it’s safe to assume the show car will be some form of utility vehicle.

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But what type of ute does Toyota have in mind? A “soft-roader,” ala the RAV4, seems unlikely. The betting would suggest that the new Toyota FJ-4X will be a serious off-roader, perhaps even something opting for a body-on-frame design, that would take aim at the likes of the new Ford Bronco or next-generation Jeep Wrangler.

A worker on the line at Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant. It will soon be building trucks.

Ford Motor Co. will invest $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities, the automaker announced Tuesday, a move signaled overnight through a tweet from Pres. Donald Trump.

The three projects the package covers will help save and, in some cases add, thousands of jobs in the suburban Detroit region, in line with one of the president’s priorities. But a senior executive from Ford told TheDetroitBureau.com that all three projects were in the works well before Trump took office – the largest, involving an $850 million assembly plant investment, approved as part of a deal with the United Auto Workers Union in 2015.

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The announcement is “consistent with what we announced previously,” said Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s President of the Americas, though he quickly stressed that Ford is “encouraged by the pro-growth approach the administration is trying to follow. We continue to be encouraged by the dialogue.”

Ford finally confirmed in January it will bring back the Bronco (a concept version shown here).

Ford Motor Co. is expected to announce today that it will spend over $1 billion to expand and upgrade three plants in Michigan, an expansive program highlighted overnight in a tweet from President Donald Trump and detailed in a story in a local Detroit paper.

According to the Detroit News, however, the largest portion of that project involves an investment at the Michigan Assembly Plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne, Michigan and was in the works well before the businessman-turned politician was elected president last year. The other investments are expected to support work at that plant.

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As a candidate, Trump frequently criticized Ford over its decision to move small car production to Mexico, warning that he would take steps, as president, to penalize the automaker, including an import tax on Mexican-made vehicles. In January, however, Trump hailed Ford’s announcement that it was canceling a second Mexican plant – even though it was still going ahead with plans to move the compact Focus model to Mexico.

Could this Ford Bronco concept shown a decade ago could serve as a template for a new SUV.

They’re baaaack!!!

After plenty of hints, rumors, innuendos and leaked production plans, Ford officials confirmed today in Detroit that its bringing back the Ford Bronco SUV and Ford Ranger truck. Both will be built at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan.

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“We’ve heard our customers loud and clear. They want a new generation of vehicles that are incredibly capable yet fun to drive,” said Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of The Americas. (more…)

Could this Ford Bronco concept shown a decade ago could serve as a template for a new SUV.

Ford will bring back two old light truck nameplates sometime in 2018, according to a union official representing the Michigan plant where the Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup will be produced.

The two models will go into a suburban Detroit plant that has been producing some of Ford’s smaller passenger car lines. The Focus sedan and C-Max people-mover will move to Mexico, a plan that triggered a tirade by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. His campaign has not responded to a request for comment on the latest development.

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Ford has repeatedly said it would find new work for the Michigan Assembly Plant in the suburb of Wayne, but not what would go there. It turns out union leaders have known about the replacement products for some time. (more…)

Could this Ford Bronco concept shown a decade ago could serve as a template for a new SUV.

With the industry undergoing what many product planners now thinks is a permanent shift toward utility vehicles of every description, Ford Motor Co., which kicked off the boom in sport utility vehicles, back in the 1990s, offered a few broad hints about the four new SUVs and crossovers it is planning to introduce during the next four years.

Mark LaNeve, Ford vice president of marketing, sales and service, said he could not offer any details about the vehicles that are in the company’s product pipeline. But he did offer some suggesting about what Ford’s future product portfolio.

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“We don’t have a mini (crossover) that could slip into the company’s line-up underneath the Ford Escape,” LaNeve said. (more…)

A Ford Bronco concept shown a decade back could serve as a template for a new SUV.

New contract, new products. As part of its agreement with the United Auto Workers Union, Ford Motor Co. will invest $9 billion in its U.S. operations and, among other things, that will mean the return of two old nameplates: the Ranger and the Bronco.

It also means that the big Michigan Assembly Plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne will remain fully operational – something that was far from certain after Ford’s prior announcement that it would be moving several models out of that plant and down to Mexico.

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Ford’s four-year contract has yet to win ratification, and UAW members have shown a testiness this year that led to the defeat of an initial contract from Fiat Chrysler. Skilled trades workers also rejected their tentative contract at General Motors. But the Ford offer appears to be the most lucrative of any from Detroit’s Big Three and, with the thumbs-up of plant leaders, it could win strong rank-and-file approval. (more…)

Coming up with an all-new name has become a major headache for automakers around the world. It can be difficult to find a name that hasn’t already been taken, and it then can be extremely costly to build consumer awareness.

So, it seems, a number of carmakers are looking back into their past to see if there are once-popular nameplates that can be revived. And with the successful revival of the Chevrolet Camaro, a few years back, it seems that even more manufacturers are going to take this route.

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Among the once-popular names we may soon see back in showrooms are the Grand Wagoneer, Barracuda, Ranger and Bronco, it seems. And still others may follow – though looking for a blast from the past does carry some risks, industry analysts warn.

As TheDetroitBureau.com reported this week, Ford Motor Co. is expected to bring back the Ranger pickup, a nameplate it abandoned in the U.S. in 2011, though it continued offering an all-new model overseas. The Ranger would fill a gap in Ford’s line-up now that there are signs American motorists are returning to the once-huge midsize truck segment.

Ford is now expected to offer a U.S. version of the midsize Ranger pickup, a model it dropped in 2010.

The revival of the Ranger would follow the return of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon models that briefly went out of production while General Motors worked up a more modern and competitive redesign of the compact trucks.

Ford also is said to be toying with the return of another once-popular model, the Bronco SUV. It was once a leader in the sport-utility segment but was replaced by more car-like models, such as the Ford Explorer. A new Bronco, sources suggest, would be roughly the size of the latest Explorer, but instead of riding on a car-like crossover platform it would share the chassis of the new Ranger pickup.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has brought back a number of model names in recent years, including muscle car mainstays like the Dodge Charger and Challenger. And it may add one more old-is-now offering to that high-powered segment, a revived Barracuda. In its heyday, the ‘Cuda was marketed through the now-abandoned Plymouth brand. Going forward it also would be sold through Dodge.

The sibling Jeep brand is also expected to bring back an old model, this one the big Grand Wagoneer. Though often credited with creating the modern SUV boom, Jeep hasn’t kept up with some key rivals in filling every possible model niche. The revived Grand Wagoneer would be a full-size model to take on the likes of the Mercedes-Benz GL, among others.

The return of the Chevy Camaro was one of the industry's most successful relaunches.

FCA reportedly is filling in dealers on its future product plans during a meeting in Las Vegas. Ford, meanwhile, has reportedly clued in the United Auto Workers Union on some of its plans as part of its ongoing contract negotiations. Formal public announcements could follow in the weeks or months ahead.

There are several reasons why manufacturers reach into their histories to revive old nameplates. For one thing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to come up with good names that aren’t already in use or at least registered by a competitor. That’s one reason many makers have gone the alphanumeric route. But they also know that it’s hard to get worked up about something called an ABC123.

Launching an all-new nameplate, meanwhile, is extremely expensive, a mainstream model often requiring a marketing investment of $100 million or more to establish in the market, notes analyst Joe Phillippi, of AutoTrends Consulting.

But when it comes to these blasts from the past, some of those old model names still carry a lot of positive heritage that automatically tell a story in the collective public mind. That was the case when General Motors brought back the Chevrolet Camaro in 2009. The muscle car went on to dominate the so-called pony car segment for the next five years.

The retro-styled Ford Thunderbird didn't deliver on the maker's high hopes.

On the other hand, GM’s effort to bring back the once-revered Pontiac GTO name flopped a decade ago. Unlike the retro-styled Camaro, the new “Goat” had a bland and largely forgettable design that failed to connect with consumers.

The same was the case with the Thunderbird, the two-seat roadster Ford tried to launch a decade ago. Over the decades, the T’bird went through a variety of incarnations, from the original 2-seater to a bloated coupe and then into a quirky but less-than-compelling 2-seater again. A variety of product weaknesses resulted in mixed reviews and weak sales, and the Thunderbird was again pulled from the market.

So, while a grand old name can give a new product a head start, it’s not enough to fix a bad vehicle design.